Quick Start

This walks you from a fresh clone to a running service that answers on http://localhost:39146.

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/it-at-m/captchaservice.git
cd captchaservice

2. Start the development stack

The repository ships a Compose stack that runs PostgreSQL (and any other infrastructure the service needs) on the right ports.

cd stack
{docker|podman} compose up -d

Use either docker compose or podman compose depending on what you have installed.

3. Build and run the application

cd backend
bash runLocal.sh

runLocal.sh wires up the local profile, picks up the credentials defined in the Compose stack, and starts the Spring Boot application.

4. Verify the service is running

curl http://localhost:39146/actuator/health

You should get a 200 OK with a small JSON body whose top-level status field is "UP". See Monitoring for the rest of the management endpoints.

5. Test with the widget demo (optional)

To verify challenge creation and verification in the browser, continue with the Widget Demo. It uses the running stack and backend together with the Vue app in widget/.

Next steps

• Widget Demo — end-to-end browser test with the ALTCHA widget
• Environment Variables — flags you can override from the outside.
• Site Configuration — define your sites, secrets and difficulty maps.
• Create Challenge and Verify Solution — the two endpoints clients call.